Songs for the Four Corners of the Room

"Keep Trying" is one.

"Squares One through Four" (another title for the "Square One/Set the Prisoners Free" Song) is another.

For now "Chimney Flu/Heigh Ho" can be the two others.

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The conclusion of the assignment of a counting numeral is always an opportunity to examine all that it contains, and the year 2006 is no exception.

Well, for now there is too much hidden meaning in everything I write for me to write an assessment of the year that was. Suffice it to say, in addition to turning a national election tide, and a low level grade of generalized optimism bolstered by a return to interpersonal enlightenment (how upbeat can I be?), 2006 was eventful on a personal level.

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In the One Dream stage production of "Legs Like These," in 1989, the director suggested that all the participants would find each other and marry. In retrospect, I see something like that happened to four of them. I wonder how they are today. That composing job for me arose from a recommendation from one of my fellow participants in the BMI Music Theatre Workshop, and it was great challenging fun...

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In case it is not already apparent, I have been ploughing through the Memoirs of Tennesse Williams (Tennessee Williams Memoirs "A raw display of private life"--New York Times Book Review), actually reading them after all these years, thanks to Mr. John Waters' recent essay published in the New York Times Book Review. Previously I'd only opened to the index to find some fragment, particularly those on Williams' collaborations with one of the guiding forces of Italian Cinema, Luchino Visconti (What a name that fellow had! It just looks great as a title on the screen.). Tennesse Williams has a credit in Visconti's Senso, a vaguely annoying Italian Nationalism period story of the choice, such as it is, between military glory in the field of battle and cowardice in the field of the bedroom, with tennis player Farley Granger. I guess that story is an expression and examination of challenging human conditions. Furthermore, I guess the weight of Visconti's name connects with the weight of his work product. He was an independent Hollywood. Mr. Williams' book touches briefly on how TW got or gave the film that gratis TW credit; it was in appreciation to LV for making a woman named Maria part of the production. The comprehension test question for readers of the Memoirs is, Who was Maria?

Obviously at this rate I'll never get to a full examination of the Memoirs, which I imagine myself comprehending, so consider this fingernail journal entry something containing the DNA strand to generate an entire human body, living, breathing, interactive. So, thank you, John Waters, for alerting me to the readability of Tennessee Williams Memoirs, illustrative of the personal breakthrough that followed his hobo years. It looks like he used his heart problem to good effect in that it got him, not just out of gym class the way mine did, but out of his job as a shoe salesman.

That's one 2006 personal event worth mentioning, after all those years ingesting oral beta blockers I never had a heart problem. My debilitating palpitations break when I do the opposite of cringe and wilt into them, which is to stick out my chest in silly defiance.

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I saw 54 televised minutes of Mel Gibson's Aramaic Passion Play before becoming completely disagreeable. I love the blue beginning and very much enjoyed seeing a soldier's torch add spectacular color to the blue. It was also a pleasure to welcome back the demons in the desert. I suppose they are always out there, waiting for our imaginations.

It is my recollection that the messiah is indeed supposed to be coming, if he hasn't come already, and many have claimed they were he... Sabattai Zevi is my favorite. What is this coming of the messiah? It accomplishes what? Given expectation of one, it is understandable that when one of us among us takes on the title for him or her self that we might become disillusioned and pissed off from the elevated hopes and inevitable disappointment.

Only the heights of salvation can achieve the depths of despair. Who else wants to claim messiah status? And remind me, what good will the messiah do again? Perhaps his or her coming will release the tension I feel compelling me to write this. Although Paul's success with Rome is undeniable, Mr. Gibson's film is a great reminder that Christianity is a sect of judaism.

Briefly with regard to visiting West Point, I only cried twice, once after the recruiter urged the posthumous white star recognition for his close friend's father... They pinned it on the soldeir in the battlefield, and wouldn't acknowledge it thereafter. Witnesses still live to confirm... To the children surrounding him as we walked by, overhearing, spellbound by his extemporaneous speech, he said join if you're devoted and passionate, beyond the ability... have the willingness to give yourself. You can take the man out of the military but you can't take the military out of the man.

He walked off with a limp...

It was homecoming for the graduates of 1981, of which I was one, FROM QUEENS COLLEGE, a City University, not a military academy....

The morning tatou of chopper-dropped paratroupers, guiding their chutes as they descended, surfing to the parade field on purple smoke streams, then the afternoon football game where Army mostly loses to dedicated football universities; you see, career football players get a better deal at Ohio's Kent State, but Kent State lost by three points in overtime as the kicked football came sailing at us in the sun.

The Kent State/National Guard incident occurred on May 4th, 1970. It went into Watergate Overtime.

OK, the Army team is called "The Black Knights," no, not Black Nights of the Soul. They have two mascots, the helmutted comic book black knight and the buff mule, muscles rippling washerboard style on the suffocating costume... no problem wearing those outfits for the cadets... the cheerleading girls with black warpaint on their cheeks, throwing themselves across the sidefield, bouncing, flipping, bouncing, moving fast forward, always landing on their feet.

Then the mules parade out during half-time... "A mule is the issueless offspring of a horse and a donkey..." The half-time orchestra covered "Hey Jude."

The great orchestra is sitting in the stands with percussion and horns, playing throughout the game.

Yellow low level horns blow out burial ground elephant calls. The cadets do their push-ups on the field at a touchdown. The girls flap their arms, tiny dancers standing on the the outstretched hands of the strong men.

They played against the Golden Flashes...the name of the Kent State football team.

So The Black Knights beat the Golden Flashes. !!!

Greeting the arriving freshman, blasting Linkin Park, the Eagles, Zeppeline, Modest Mouse... beer and an aromatic Bar-B-Q!

High School graduating military devotees, get to know your congressperson. Each member of congress selects two enrollees a year.

For those black nights of the soul, Bushnell Night Vision! View photons on a phosphorescent screen.

Free army visor with a completed Visa application, and you'll need the visor for the sun.

All the fodder for a wonderful essay, right here in semi-comprehensible phrase scraps... Thank you.

100% Community Betrayal

I actually love watching baseball but the pro-leagues lost me during a strike the teams held some time ago.

Sorry this is so late but today's groundbreaking is like hitting me over the head with a hammer.

The young audience members at Yankee Stadium can take their bats and balls and catchers mits and go out to the fields of Maccombs Dam Park, their PUBLIC PARK, where they can play their own game, learn from the pros across the way and maybe someday, themselves play in the big league stadium next door...Yippee! Oh, no, this sport is for professionals. Let's build a new stadium where the park is and give the local kids the old stadium as a memorial to baseball embalmed.

This concludes the credibility of the very well spoken and intelligent Mayor Bloomberg.

Enough moaning. The serious issue of "tenancy and home" needs to stabilize in fairness to all parties, but with regard to my own living quarters, thank you for your kind consideration. Now it's up to me to make it work.

Meanwhile, welcome, another million people, to the population of New York City!

Guess who loves New York? I do. Peter Dizozza

The 315-321 East 12th Street buildings are just east of the Elizabeth Home for Girls.

Let's see the old map.

Stuyvesant's farm extended to Tompkins Square Park.

His street, the one that bisects the East 9th and 10th Street grid between 2nd and 3rd Avenues (where St. Marks Church is) bisects East 11th and East 12th between 1st and 2nd.

Oh, I can read the map now! What a wild goose chase. All this time I thought the map read "St. Marlos," it actually reads "St. Marks."

Stuvesant street ran along the border of St. Marks Cemetery. My apartment is built over the North corner diamond of old St. Marks Cemetery...

That makes much more sense.

July 23, 2006

Dear Sir:

I am having another sleepless night here in your apartment.

Does government rent regulation law so forcibly affect your speculation plans that you must make a “free market” offer to your unregulated tenant that is that much more financially debilitating?

You are forcing me to buy or leave my home of 17 years without regard to what I can afford because it is what the letter of the law allows.

You are acting within the letter of the law even though my apartment is part of the 86% of shares in a “non-eviction” cooperative residence plan that have remained unsold for 17 years while the real estate market rose precipitously, and while the tenant therein, me was ever told he could only rent, never buy.

You, as incorporator of an LLC formed to be the third “purchaser” of UNSOLD shares, pay a monthly maintenance of $872, to yourself as managing agent, while I pay $1,625 to you.

Although in your final offer you allege to have “shot your wad,” and “tapped yourself dry,” please note that in order to fulfill upon your offer, I must do the following:

Because I can only pay $75,000 of your purchase price, I ask a bank willing to underwrite mortgages in a less-than-51% owner/occupied building to lend me the rest.

After closing, my monthly payment will be $872 to you and $3,128 to the bank.

Rather than paying $1,625 a month, nearly double your maintenance cost, I will pay, at a minimum, $4,200 a month, for the next 30 years.

If that is your idea of free market negotiations with people and their homes, then re-exam the GBL Article 23-A language, which you swore the attorney general you would uphold. This is the same language you say housing judges in Manhattan will ignore based on an appellate term decision involving a tenant who took possession of an apartment 5 years after it went "Condo."

First let's look at a dictionary.
The holder of UNSOLD shares in cooperative corporation is NOT a PURCHASER:
"Sold" means "to be purchased."

You swore to the attorney general to comply with this language.

GENERAL BUSINESS LAW
ARTICLE 23-A. FRAUDULENT PRACTICES IN RESPECT TO STOCKS, BONDS AND OTHER SECURITIES

NY CLS Gen Bus § 352-eeee (2006)

§ 352-eeee. [Expires June 15, 2011] Conversions to cooperative or condominium ownership in the city of New York

1. (e) "Non-purchasing tenant". A person who has not purchased under the plan and who is a tenant entitled to possession at the time the plan is declared effective or a person to whom a dwelling unit is rented subsequent to the effective date. A person who sublets a dwelling unit from a purchaser under the plan shall not be deemed a non-purchasing tenant.

2. (ii) No eviction proceedings will be commenced at any time against non-purchasing tenants for failure to purchase or any other reason applicable to expiration of tenancy; ...
(iv) The rentals of non-purchasing tenants who reside in dwelling units not subject to government regulation as to rentals and continued occupancy and non-purchasing tenants who reside in dwelling units with respect to which government regulation as to rentals and continued occupancy is eliminated or becomes inapplicable after the plan has been accepted for filing by the attorney general shall not be subject to unconscionable increases beyond ordinary rentals for comparable apartments during the period of their occupancy. In determining comparability, consideration shall be given to such factors as building services, level of maintenance and operating expenses.

187 Misc. 2d 243; 721 N.Y.S.2d 459;
2000 N.Y. Misc. 573,
Park West Village Associates, Respondent, v. Chiyoko Nishoika, Appellant, et al., Respondents.
# 99-562
SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE TERM, FIRST DEPARTMENT
187 Misc. 2d 243; 721 N.Y.S.2d 459; 2000 N.Y. Misc. 573
October 26, 2000, Decided
LEXIS OVERVIEW: Appellant entered into possession of the apartment at issue under a lease agreement five years after the residential building premises underwent a non-eviction type conversion to condominium ownership. The lease agreement expired, and respondent landlord brought a holdover action. The appellate court held that, in light of the legislative purpose underlying § 352-eeee, appellant's post-conversion leasehold did not fall within the statute's reach.